Muse has organized local solar symposiums as informational sessions for people interested in alternative energy supplies. One of her go-to speakers is Doug Kalmer. Kalmer and his wife live in Lutts, Tennessee, in a passive solar home he built in the 1980s.

He started utilizing solar energy before that. He was in his mid-20s and living in New York and needed a way to avoid the high cost of heating his un-insulated, "run-down" house. He did that with solar space heating.

"A friend gave me a subscription to Mother Earth News and it had a lot of DIY solar ideas," Kalmer said. "That made me want to do everything I could do with the free, abundant fuel that falls on us every year."

In his current home, he does not have an electric bill. He actually gets money back from TVA each year because his solar system supplies more power than he uses.

That excess power feeds back into the power grid.

"Most people think I must have batteries and not be connected to the grid," he said. "Most people think you have to be off the grid with generators, but with the grid tie you don't have to do anything. There is no maintenance, no batteries to monitor or replace. It is very simple to use whatever you want to run and run whatever you want whenever you want."

The recent rise in popularity of solar energy can be attributed to its lower costs of installation and operation.Small and medium sized panels are available to suit the budget and space of every one’s homes.It has now emerged as the best source alternative source of energy.

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